Russia will destroy all of its chemical weapons by the end of next year - a year earlier than previously announced, officials say.

Colonel General Valery Kapashin, a military official in charge of storage and elimination of Russia's chemical stockpiles, told news agencies that the remaining weapons will have been disposed of by December 2017.

As a signatory of the international Chemical Weapons Convention, Russia already has destroyed about 93% of its chemical weapons, according to Russian officials.

Russia had to build several plants in the past two decades to dispose of the world's largest chemical weapons arsenal.